5.  The applicants were born in 1967, 1972, 2002 and 2004 respectively and live in Varna. The first two applicants are a married couple and the third and fourth applicants are their minor daughters.
6.  The first applicant, Mr Borislav Gutsanov, is a member of parliament for the Socialist Party, a member of the Central Executive Bureau of the Socialist Party and vice-president of its regional branch. At the relevant time he was the Chairman of Varna municipal council, elected from his party’s list.
7.  Between December 2009 and April 2010, the Bulgarian Ministry of the Interior conducted several police operations throughout the country aimed at dismantling various criminal groups. During the course of these operations the police arrested a number of individuals, including some political figures, a fact which attracted widespread media coverage and public interest. Several politicians including the Prime Minister and the Minister of the Interior, as well as a number of prosecutors and police commissioners, were regularly approached by the media to comment on the arrests and the ensuing criminal proceedings.
8.  A series of applications was made to the Court following these events (Maslarova v. Bulgaria, no. 26966/10; Aleksey Petrov (II) v. Bulgaria, no. 30336/10; Kostadinov v. Bulgaria, no. 37124/10; Tsonev v. Bulgaria, no. 44885/10; Petrov and Ivanova v. Bulgaria, no. 45773/10; and Stoyanov and Others v. Bulgaria, no. 55388/10).
9.  On 30 October 2009 the Sofia city public prosecutor’s office commenced criminal proceedings against a person or persons unknown for abuse of office by a public servant and misappropriation of public funds resulting in significant damage to the Varna municipal public transport company. The facts in issue had taken place between 2003 and 2007. On 8 February 2010 the Prosecutor General ordered the criminal investigation file to be sent to the Varna regional public prosecutor’s office. The investigation was to be carried out by the Varna police under the supervision of the regional prosecutor’s office.
10.  On 31 March 2010, in the course of that criminal investigation, a team of police officers entered the applicants’ home at around 6.30 a.m. and proceeded to arrest Mr Gutsanov and search the premises. The events surrounding the police operation are disputed by the parties.
11.  In the early morning of 31 March 2010, Mr and Mrs Gutsanovi were asleep in their bedroom on the second floor of their house in Varna. Their two daughters were asleep in their rooms on the floor below. The family home was equipped with a closed-circuit television (CCTV) monitoring system, and a night watchman, D.P., was on duty at the entrance to the property.
12.  At around 6.30 a.m., D.P. observed on the CCTV screen two or three police vehicles driving past the garden gate in silence with their lights off and stopping a little further on.
13.  Shortly afterwards a group of police officers appeared at the entrance to the property and some of them began knocking loudly on the gate and demanding that it be opened immediately. D.P. left his night watchman’s post and opened the gate. He then saw two plain-clothes police officers, four or five uniformed officers and a group of four or five masked officers of the Interior Ministry special commando unit. D.P. was immobilised and handcuffed by the police officers and was asked whether the owners of the house were at home. He said that they were, and told the police officers that there were two young children in the house. He was asked to open the entrance door to the house but explained that he did not have the keys.
14.  The police officers then ran towards the door of the house, shouting “Police! Open up!”. Some of the officers began opening the door using various tools (a battering ram, a lever and a crowbar). According to D.P.’s statement, the police officers managed to open the door after five or ten minutes and entered the stairwell of the house.
15.  Mr and Mrs Gutsanovi stated that they had been woken suddenly by the sound of the blows to the door and the shouts. They ran down to the lower floor and took their daughters into their bedroom on the second floor of the house.
16.  Mr Gutsanov said that he had then left the bedroom in order to find out what was really going on. At that point he heard several people coming up the stairs and shouting “Come out” and “We’re police officers”. He immediately returned to the second-floor bedroom where his wife and daughters were. Shortly afterwards the armed and masked police officers entered the parents’ bedroom and pointed their weapons, equipped with lamps, at Mr Gutsanov and his wife and two daughters, shouting “Police! Don’t move!”. Mr Gutsanov was pinned against the wall before being taken downstairs, where he was forced to kneel and was handcuffed.
17.  According to the statements made by Mr and Mrs Gutsanovi, their two daughters, who were on their parents’ bed, were screaming and crying with fear. The police ordered Mrs Gutsanova to cover their heads with a duvet, which she did.
18.  Shortly afterwards, Mr Gutsanov was allowed to go up to the second floor and get dressed.
19.  At 7.30 a.m. the family chauffeur and the children’s nanny arrived and took the two girls to school. After school, the girls went to their aunt’s home and spent the night there.
20.  In support of their version of events, the applicants submitted a handwritten and undated statement by Mr Gutsanov, a statement dated 7 April 2010 signed by his wife, a handwritten statement dated 8 April 2010 signed by the night watchman D.P., and a handwritten statement dated April 2010 bearing the signature of the family’s private chauffeur. They also submitted a weather report from the Varna meteorological service stating that, on that day, the sun had risen at 6.52 a.m. and that the dawn had lasted for thirty-one minutes. They further produced a copy of an interview given by Mrs Gutsanova to the weekly newspaper Galeria and published on 8 April 2010.
21.  The applicants also submitted a video recording of the television programme Afera broadcast on 11 April 2010 on Skat, a privately owned television channel. The programme included an interview with Mrs Gutsanova as well as some footage from the property’s CCTV system taken on the morning of 31 March 2010. The first sequence shows two light vehicles and a police van driving past the applicants’ property. In the second sequence a uniformed police officer can be seen knocking on the metal gate of the house, after which the gate opens. The third sequence shows two special officers, dressed in black and armed with sub-machine guns equipped with lamps, inspecting part of the garden, and a man in civilian clothing who appears at the door. The man goes back inside the house followed by the two special officers. The fourth sequence shows two special officers running towards the house, leaving behind a uniformed police officer and a man in civilian clothing. The last two men appear to be looking up at the top of the house. A further sequence, filmed by a reporter, shows the state of the glass door of the house after the police officers’ forced entry: the glass panes are intact but the handle, the lock and the latch have been broken off.
22.  On 30 March 2010 the Varna regional head of the organised crime squad and the Varna regional public prosecutor approved plans for an operation in the context of criminal proceedings against a person or persons unknown for misappropriation of public funds belonging to the Varna municipal public transport company (see paragraph 9 above). The plan entailed arresting five individuals suspected of committing the offences in question, including Mr Gutsanov, and searching the suspects’ homes and offices. The operations were to be carried out the following morning, 31 March 2010, and to be conducted simultaneously by five teams made up of investigating officers, uniformed officers and armed and masked special officers.
23.  The team selected for the operation at the applicants’ home received instructions from their superior officers at 5.30 a.m. on the day of the police operation. The officers were warned that Mr Gutsanov was the lawful owner of a Glock 17C pistol which he kept at home.
24.  At 6.30 a.m. on 31 March 2010 the team, made up of plain-clothes officers, two uniformed officers and four special officers dressed in black and wearing bullet-proof vests marked “Police”, went to the applicants’ home. The officers knocked at the metal gate of the property, which was opened by a man who said he was the security guard. He explained that he did not have the keys to the door of the house and that the only people in there were Mr Gutsanov, his wife and their two children. Two special officers then walked around the outside of the house in order to secure other possible exits, while the other two officers ran towards the front door of the house and began knocking and shouting “Police! Open up!”. The uniformed officers stayed in the garden outside the front door.
25.  After five minutes, the police officers saw the outline of a man through the panoramic windows of the house. They called out “Police. Come down! Open the door!”. Mr Gutsanov was seen twice through a window but did not come down. The special officers forced the front door and entered the house. One of them saw Mr Gutsanov in the stairwell and called out to him: “Police! Move over here slowly! Show your hands!”. The applicant refused to comply and ran up to the floor above. The officers followed him, calling out “Police! Stop!”. The applicant went through a door on the second floor and when they got nearer the officers saw that he had gone into a bedroom where his wife and two daughters were. At that point the applicant came out of the room and was handcuffed. He asked permission to get dressed and was taken into the same bedroom by one of the masked officers.
26.  At no point during the operation did the police officers speak to Mrs Gutsanova or her two daughters. The officer who went into the bedroom was not carrying a firearm but had only a Taser electroshock weapon. The officer stayed in the bedroom for just long enough to allow Mr Gutsanov to find some clothes, and they then left the room together. The applicant was handed over to the other police officers, and the special officers left the premises immediately afterwards.
27.  The Government submitted the following documents in support of their version of events: the plan of action for the operation in question, a report by the regional directorate of the Interior Ministry, three reports by Ministry personnel involved in the operation, including the commanding officer of the special operations team, the search report approved by a judge, and two orders issued by the Varna regional public prosecutor’s office and dated 7 April 2010. The Government also produced press photographs of the applicants’ house which showed, among other things, a glass facade giving onto the garden.
28.  Mrs Gutsanova stated that her younger daughter, B., had had a stammer for which she had seen a specialised speech therapist for a year, and that she had begun stammering again following the events of 31 March 2010.
29.  According to the statement made by the teacher responsible for S., the couple’s elder daughter, the latter had been visibly stressed and unusually quiet on 31 March 2010. Mr Gutsanov’s sister, who had looked after her niece in her own home the same day, observed that the child had been anxious. The girl had apparently spoken a few times that day about what had happened at her house. Since then, she had been fearful whenever she saw police officers.
30.  On 12 April 2010 Mr and Mrs Gutsanovi’s two daughters were examined by a psychiatrist, who observed that the memory of the events of 31 March 2010 produced anxious reactions in both girls, in the form of anxiety in the case of the elder girl and outbursts of crying in the case of the younger one. The psychiatrist did not observe any other psychological complications in the children.
31.  Following the events of 31 March 2010, Mrs Gutsanova consulted a psychiatrist on two occasions. She complained, among other things, of insomnia and anxiety and was prescribed tranquillisers.
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